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Microsoft's Telemetry Additions To Windows 7 and 8 Raise Privacy Concerns
WheezyJoe writes: ghacks and Ars Technica are providing more detail about Windows 10's telemetry and "privacy invasion" features being backported to Windows 7 and 8. The articles list and explain some of the involved updates by number (e.g., KB3068708, KB3022345, KB3075249, and KB3080149). The Ars article says the Windows firewall can block the traffic just fine, and the service sending the telemetry can be disabled. "Additionally, most or all of the traffic appears to be contingent on participating in the CEIP in the first place. If the CEIP is disabled, it appears that little or no traffic gets sent. This may not always have been the case, however; the notes that accompany the 3080149 update say that the amount of network activity when not part of CEIP has been reduced." The ghacks article explains other ways block the unwanted traffic and uninstall the updates.
Telemetry hack
Like shearing your back
The right suds keep it
From chopping your stack
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What the hell is CEIP? Editors, define your acronyms the first time they're used, especially if they're not common.
Can Editors Inspect Paragraphs?
Does anybody have instructions for common hardware firewalls and routers on what needs to be blocked at the network level?
My google-fu keeps failing me and everybody tries to explain how to do it using the built-in firewall which is probably as secure as guarding the hen house with foxes.
Thanks,
IMarv
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
Ubuntu...
There are consequences to every action
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
no more updates -- no more purchases
Microsoft Active Protection Service.
Turn it off if you are using their antivirus errr, stuff
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Microsoft is certainly not the first to data mine some information from computer users. Nor is it the first to force updates onto devices. Or use a special account sign in to access a device. Microsoft is basically following what Apple and Google have already done and got little attention from it. Tell me that a Facebook account is less of a threat to your privacy then a Microsoft account signed into Windows 8 or 10. Really, this is ridiculous that we now pick Microsoft to spin them as the bad company here. Folks, we lost privacy on the internet these days the minute you accessed it and used services like Twitter, Facebook, Google anything, Apple anything, and so much more. The internet of things is you. Get over it!
and some quick googling too. And don't install any new updates, especially kernel updates, within the first week.
I don't have any of the tracking crap (that we know of) installed as i manually check each and every update offered. It's always been a good idea to wait a little bit after patch tuesday to make sure they haven't borked any updates but these days you simply cannot trust microsoft given that they have turned 10 into what amounts to a spyware infected OS.
Eat my shit Microsoft. No one wants their data sent to you in any way, shape, or form.
Stop being sneaky snake motherfuckers and trying to slide one by your consumers.
I bet in your board meetings you use your predatory thinking and tactics to prey on the consumer and steal their data. Especially the most vulnerable users who don't know any better.
Maybe some big legal team will file a class action suit against you for these board room meetings?
I think a more apt comparison would be to compare this to the entire process of getting a colonoscopy, from the preparation the day before, to the actual "exam".....
Willie...
There goes the other foot.
Why don't they just uninstall the update? Seems like they're making it harder than they should.
So...did Microsoft take the guy who turned on "Do Not Track" in IE out back and shoot him?
I am willing to contribute money for the development of (hopefully) simple software or scripts rid my system of this malware, once installed.
Also, some ongoing review system which only allows MS updates that are deemed benign.
Sheesh, it's getting tedious to wade through all the KB verbiage with my evil lawyer hat on.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
"Raises privacy concerns" is elliptical speech: it's made to be deliberately obscure. (It uses "causes concern" to convey the central point without giving any information about what the point is.)
It's also passive voice, in that there's no person performing the action, the action is simply "caused" by something. (For comparison, consider "we wrote reports" versus "reports were written".) Hence, there's no person or group responsible, it's simply an aspect of situation.
And finally, the phrase uses framing to soften the effect. Your personal information isn't being harvested, the system simply "raises some concerns".
Taken as a whole the headline tries to get the reader emotionally involved by stating something we should be concerned about, without saying in concrete terms *that* there is anything to be concerned about, and that it's *other people* who are concerned.
Meh. This didn't work on me, I'm not actually concerned, I'm going to ignore it.
(Propaganda success!)
When the service is disabled, no traffic should be sent back to Microsoft whatsoever. "Little/ almost no traffic" is not good enough.
that I only use a few times a day for testing with Edge uses more bandwidth than the Windows 7 system I normally use, it is definitely sending a lot of information to Microsoft. Plus, the tiles on the start menu use a lot of bandwidth. I have a slow connection so there's usually a ten or more second pause after I click the start button before it is shown.
Can it be removed? They have been putting out more and more 1-way updates.
Put the following script in a *.bat file and run it with an elevated prompt.
Personally though (mixed Linux + Win7 user here) I no longer install any updates from Microsoft that aren't flagged "Security Update". Done. The added benefit of this, especially for many of my VM images, is that the winsxs folder does not balloon out of control. So it's a win-win as far as I can see. So far I haven't noticed anything missing from Win7 due to me not applying the updates. Can anyone point out something I may miss?
PS: This script is not mine, I got it from this thread here.
--- ....sorry all, can't post the script here. Folllow the link and take it from there. The guys on that thread have posted 2-3 iterations, I personally used their final version and it works very nicely, though based on my post above you can see for new installs I'm not installing *any* Win7 updates that aren't "Security" updates.
FUCK YOU SLASHDOT: Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
I really want to like Windows 10. It seems to have a lot of nice features, was a smooth upgrade from 7, and probably the single most painless OS upgrade I've had on any MS platform (I had to correct a single driver, for a minor issue, and that was it).
But I'm really, really sick of just how blatantly Microsoft is trying to jam every single stupid thing into this, and tie it back to their cloud based bit. And I might even be okay with some of that, because I'm well aware that I wind up giving a lot to Google when I'm using stuff on Android. I might even use some of it, if they weren't going far beyond even what Google does.
The final straw was when they wanted to essentially remove my local account on the machine and replace it with me using a Microsoft account for my local login. No, sorry, but Redmond can go get fucked if they want that. It's one thing to have stuff in a cloud based application that has its own password, but it's another thing for that cloud based password to be my entire system. Perhaps I'm being overly negative, but it's just too much, that they want all this personal data, and they want to tie it all not just to what I do in application land with Outlook/Bing/Edge/Cortana/Skype whatever, but down to the OS level? No. And if it gets worse, I may just have to bite the bullet and do my PC gaming on Linux, and give up on doing anything bleeding edge.
I've come up with a relatively simple solution. The text at the end of this post is a batch file. You can copy it from here, and paste it into notepad, and save it with any name you want, and the file extension .bat and then click on it to run it. It will look for each of the corrupted updates in order, and either tell you that they aren't installed, or give you the option of removing them. If you do choose to remove one or more of them, it will prompt you to reset your computer after each successful removal. Don't do this - choose the other option, to reset later, instead. Then, once the whole batch file has run, you can reset your computer to make all the changes take effect.
Also note that the final line deals with an update to Skype and may affect Skype functionality. If this matters to you, simply don't include that line in your batch file.
Batchfile contents begin on the line below.
EDIT: Slashdot won't let me post the batch file text here ("too much repetition") so you can find it at pastebin here: http://pastebin.com/B3DjTSX1
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
No, the guys who wanted more tracking took that guy out for a beer. That's the guy who killed off DoNotTrack. Like Private Browsing in Firefox or Incognito Mode in Chrome, DNT was about the balance between privacy on one hand and convenience/features on the other hand. DNT was supposed to mean that the user valued privacy more than convenience and features at the moment. Here's what was supposed to happen, what DNT was intended for:
Case 1, no DNT header:
I go to Slashdot, and have not set a specific DNT header. I therefore get the DEFAULT tracking/personalization behaviors of Slashdot, including:
I'm not redirected to Beta, because Slashdot tracks that I set "do not showme beta".
On my mobile device, I'm not redirected to m.slashdot.org, because again Slashdot tracks my preferences based on some identifier/cookie.
Case2, with DNT header:
I launch a Private Browsing window in Firefox, or an Incognito tab in Chrome.
The browser prompts "DNT: Do you want to tell web sites to avoid identifying you or tracking your preferences? Some features and preferences may not work in DNT mode."
I click "yes, send the DNT header".
Slashdot sees that I have expressed that I want a higher level of privacy than the default, that I am willing to give up personalization in exchange for privacy.
Slashdot does not set a cookie, and I get redirected to m.slashdot.org or beta.slashdot.org each time. It does not track me to know my preferences between sessions.
It's all about the balance between privacy and convenience. Much like Incognito / Private Browsing mode disables the browser history, autocomplete, and other useful features in exchange for better privacy.
In short, the purpose of DNT was to communicate the user's desire to value privacy over convenience.
By violating the spec and sending DNT as the DEFAULT, the DNT header in IE suddenly meant "the user probably wants the DEFAULT balance between privacy and convenience". Since IE sent DNT by default, it no longer provided any information about the user's priorities regarding convenience vs privacy. It therefore became completely useless for it's purpose. That guy killed DNT.
-----
Here's a concrete example. Quoting from the DNT policy:
| all user identifiers, such as unique or nearly unique
| cookies, "supercookies" and fingerprints are discarded
Do you really think that all sites are going to get rid of cookies, including "don't show me Beta" cookies, for anyone and everyone using IE? Just because Microsoft thought it was a good idea? No friggin way. If the USER chose to actively ticked the box, perhaps so. Because Microsoft's marketing team thought that "Do Not Track" sounded good and that breaking most web sites was an acceptable side effect? I don't think so.
No way will I install a Microsoft product on any computer under my control. Even at work, I push and recommend Linux and Mac (still a privacy nightmare itself).
Why do people think they need to know everything about you? I cannot even shop without being asked for an email address, even at pizza places. Data collection has gotten out of hand.
For the moment, I'm using Linux at home, but only because FreeBSD runs like crap on my current laptop. When it gets replaced, it's being replaced by one know to work well with BSD. Even Linux has gone downhill what with systemd. I'll end up an aging unix hippy with a text browser.
Yes it can - I have posted a simple batch file fix in a comment further down the page.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Would the editors consider adding a section for analysis of Windows updates so we can read then decide if we want them instead of having to go on click marathons through the desktop client? Even some sort of Patch Tuesday digest just indicating which of the updates are actual security patches would do it.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Do you really think that all sites are going to get rid of cookies, including "don't show me Beta" cookies, for anyone and everyone using IE? Just because Microsoft thought it was a good idea? No friggin way. If the USER chose to actively ticked the box, perhaps so. Because Microsoft's marketing team thought that "Do Not Track" sounded good and that breaking most web sites was an acceptable side effect? I don't think so.
So you're saying privacy should be opt-out rather than opt-in.
Yet in the same comment, he's saying that making it opt-out is the reason it died.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Right. So next week there's a new "critical security update" that installs the same (slightly tweaked) crap.
The funny thing about this is until this I was willing to send telemetry to Microsoft. I understand how them knowing when my system crashes helps them fix bugs. I understand the wealth of good-for-everyone knowledge that comes with reports of which precise system file had a problem performing what kind of information. I would block crash reports sometimes, and I would allow other basic telemetry most of the time.
But due to their new privacy policy and other privacy rapine I've blocked every form of telemetry on my machine. They no longer get to hear a damn thing. Surely this was predictable. And how many regular and corporate sales has Microsoft lost already over this? Everyone knows to ask their local nerd what OS and other software to use. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Yet in the same comment, he's saying that making it opt-out is the reason it died.
So we can't privacy by default. You should have no privacy unless you opt-in to having it.
Cloud login sync between my 8.1 family PC and 8.1 tablet = kinda cool - the kid's pictures and game saves just pop up between the two.
Cloud sync between my 8.1 family PC and 8.1 development box = completely pointless - these are two different machines, I don't want family junk on my dev box or makefiles all over my family machine.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
People who opted in to the Customer Experience Improvement Program are getting updates that send customer experience telemetry data.
What an outrage.
Why, again, do people still use Windows?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I didn't say anything about my opinion of what SHOULD be. I described what the DNT spec does actually say. It says the header means that user actively chose to give up convenience and features , choosing more privacy instead. That's the meaning of the DNT header, per the DNT spec. I didn't write the spec, I just read it.
As written, DNT is well matched with Private Browsing mode. Sometimes I use Private Browsing. Most of the time I don't use it, because I LIKE auto complete. But I don't like my address bar to autocomplete xvideos.com during a presentation at work. So I use private mode for xvideos.com, I don't use it for Slashdot.
If I were writing the standard, I might have three choices:
More private, less convenient ( don't remember any preferences)
Default (features based on anonymous cookies, opaque IDs)
More convenient ("keep me logged in")
From what I've read, all of these infected updates are optional, so you have to deliberately install them. Is this true? If not, how do I detect if I've been infected? Someone up the thread posted a link to a github with a batch script you have to run as administrator, that's not really what I'm talking about. I just want to detect.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I don't entirely disagree with you. However, consider this. You not only got on the web, you also LOGGED IN and posted your private opinions publicly. For whatever reason, you just chose to make your private thoughts public, and chose to have Slashdot track your /. user id. That shows that SOMETIMES, you want Slashdot to identify you. Sometimes, privacy is not the most important thing to you.
If you're like me, you clicked the "don't redirect me to beta" button. You're probably glad that Slashdot remebers that preference, so you don't have to click "no beta" every time you visit the site. In over words, you WANT Slashdot to recognize you and track your preferences.
Privacy isn't a yes or no thing, and it's not without it's costs. The question is, "how much convenience do you want to give up, right now, to get how much privacy?"
For most of us, e answer changes throughout the day. If I was on Ashley Madison, I"d want that to be very private. On the other hand, I want my Google maps to be very convenient. I'd rather it remember frequently used addresses rather than make me type em in every time.
No, I agree with your original statement. I was just pointing out the contradiction in the post by raymorris. (And to be clear, it's not a contradiction in logic but a contradiction between ideal and reality.)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
fuck microsoft
Aw man apk will jizzgazm all over this thread. The time has finally come!
"Blah blah blah." - [citation needed]
The thing that worries me it that there are now dozens of articles about which updates to remove to disable telemetry or the Windows 10 update nagbox. We've been saying that installing security updates is fundamental to keeping your computer secure. This goes against that. Do we really want to teach people to uninstall random updates based on shady blog articles?
Earlier I had all automatic update checkboxes checked, because I trusted that security updates are just that - security updates. From now on I'll be checking all the updates manually before installing, and I really hate to have to do that.
And before anybody recommends switch to Linux, I already use Linux as my main OS.
Only dumb birds land downwind.
There is no reason why in your example Slashdot could not remember your preferences without tracking you. A simple anonymous cookie with no unique ID for beta/no beta and mobile/desktop is all that is required.
Even logging in is possible without violating DNT. Just discard any tracking data not essential for the provision of logged in services. DNT doesn't mean "do not set cookies", it means "don't track my browsing habits for any reason other than the provision of the services I ask for (e.g. advertising)."
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Does turning off or on the automatic updates keeps my system secure?
yes.. I am discovering that now, in the future, I'll be warning everybody about 7 AND 8... Of course, I'll also be using one or more of these lists of "updates" to REMOVE this crap from Win7/8 when we do our "Windows Janitorial Service"..... Jesus Christ, I'm beside myself with glee that I moved my families computers off MS products in 2011.....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Unless there's a sinister plan to expand the use of telemetry in the future, why would these updates even be deployed to users who aren't already participating in the Customer Experience Improvement Program?
THIS however, works (unfortunately it sets you to IE8 again (but not IF you don't want it to regarding KB2670838):
IMPORTANT ONE IS GROUP POLICY (gpedit.msc):
Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System
Internet Communication Management, Internet Communication Settings
ENABLE (to turn it on, it is a disabler)
"Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program"
---
TO REMOVE THE BOGUS OPTIONAL TELEMETRY HOTFIXES MANUALLY:
Open command prompt
Type powershell
issue these commands
---
TO SEE WHAT ONES ARE INSTALLED:
get-hotfix -id KB3035583, KB2952664,KB2976978,KB3021917,KB3044374,KB2990214
---
TO UNINSTALL THEM (these for sure, per url next below):
wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /uninstall /kb:2952664 /uninstall /kb:2976978 /uninstall /kb:3021917 /uninstall /kb:3044374 /uninstall /kb:2990214
wusa
wusa
wusa
wusa
wusa
per http://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/...
---
DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH (these uninstalled properly):
KB3022345 (Telemetry)
KB2977759 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparatioon + Telemetry)
KB3035583 (Windows 10 upgrade preparation)
KB3068708 (Telemetry)
KB3075249 (Telemetry)
KB3080149 (Telemetry)
---
I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE INITIALLY SINCE I HAD IE11 installed (PROBABLY ONES FOR IE9/10/11):
KB3075249
KB3080149
KB2505438
* KB2670838 (See IE 9/10/11 notes below)
KB3044374
KB2990214 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
KB2505438 (Although it claims to fix performance issues, it often breaks fonts)
KB2976978 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation)
---
I GOT "NOT INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER" ON THESE (*PRIOR* TO PULLING KB2670838 which is IE 11):
* KB2670838 (This update often breaks AERO on Windows 7 and makes some fonts on websites fuzzy. A Windows 7 specific update only
(do not install IE10 or 11 otherwise it will be bundled with them, IE9 is the max version you should install to avoid this).
THESE RE-APPEAR AFTER UNINSTALLING IE11 RIGHT ON RESTARTING & CHECKING WINDOWS UPDATE:
* KB2952664 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3021917 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3068708 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
* KB3092627 (Windows 10 Upgrade preparation prior to IE9/10/11 install)
---
run cmd as administrator
sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack
---
*Task Scheduler Library:
Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
"Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.
*services.msc:
"Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".
APK
P.S.=> And, "there ya go", for stopping Windows 7/8/VISTA/10 telemetry tracking, in a nutshell... apk
If you're interested, you can read the actual DNT RFC rather than guessing about what it says.
There's nothing in the spec about "reason other than the provision of the services". There is one mention of advertising- tracking is ALLOWED under an exemption for advertising fraud detection. So almost the opposite of what you guessed it says.